Perennial Lives | Stoics, Saints, and Sages
The Perennial Lives series explores the life and philosophy of 12 figures (one per week), from Socrates (470—399 BC) to St. Thomas Aquinas (1225—1274). To assist us in our journey, we’ll turn to resources like Lives of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius, along with more recent works like Examined Lives by James Miller, Socrates’ Children by Peter Kreeft, and Lives of the Stoics by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman, and many others.
Today’s meditation is Part VIII of the Perennial Lives series — The Art of Living: From Socrates to Aquinas. Previously, we discussed The Art of Living: From Socrates to Aquinas (Part I), How to Live — Like Socrates (Part II), The Life and Philosophy of Confucius (Part III), The Wisdom of Jesus (Part IV), and The Teachings of the Buddha (Part V), How to Live — Like Lao Tzu (Part VI), and The Way of Aristotle (Part VII).
The Life and Wisdom of Epictetus
One of the very first philosophy books that I actually understood was Epictetus’s Enchiridion (or Manual). The book is a distillation of Epictetus's teachings produced by his pupil Arrian who collected and published the master's lecture notes. It’s been called an instruction manual for life and is full of practical advice for modern living.
In their book Lives of the Stoics, Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman explain, “There are the Stoics who talked about what it means to be free, and then there is Epictetus.” Holiday and Hanselman write,
Born in 55 AD in Hierapolis, Epictetus knew slavery from birth. His name, in Greek, is quite literally “acquired one.” Somehow, despite this, his tenacity, his perspective, and his sheer self-sufficiency would make Epictetus—not just in his life, not just to the emperors he influenced, but in history and for all time—the ultimate symbol of the ability of human beings to find true freedom in the darkest of circumstances.
Epictetus had little time to ponder the fairness of his fate. He was too busy being a slave. What he could do and couldn’t do was overtly controlled.
Even by Roman standards, Epictetus had a cruel master. Later Christian writers portray Epictetus’s master as violent and depraved, at one point twisting Epictetus’s leg with all his might. As a punishment? As a sick pleasure? Trying to get a disobedient young kid to follow instructions? We don’t know.
All his life, Epictetus walked with a limp. We can’t be certain whether it came from this painful incident or another, but undoubtedly he was hobbled by slavery yet somehow unbroken all the same. “Lameness is an impediment to the leg,” he would later say, “but not to the will.”
How to Be Free
The first lesson of the Encheiridion, Epictetus’s guide to Stoicism, insists that everything that is truly our own doing is naturally free, unimpeded, and unconstrained. In the short book How to Be Free, the translator and philosopher A.A. Long explains the Stoic idea of freedom.
Long writes that freedom, according to the Stoics, is neither legal status nor opportunity to move around at liberty. It is the mental orientation of being impervious to frustration or disappointment because their wants and decisions depend on themselves and involve nothing that they cannot deliver to themselves.
Epictetus taught his students,
Our master is anyone who has the power to implement or prevent the things that we want or don’t want. Whoever wants to be free, therefore, should wish for nothing or avoid nothing that is up to other people. Failing that, one is bound to be a slave.
Epictetus’s idea of being free sets a high bar.
However, one must remember that the path to peace is worth the effort. “If you wish to have peace and contentment,” observed Epictetus, “release your attachment to all things outside your control. This is the path of freedom and happiness.”
Epictetus admits that one has to be highly motivated to achieve such great goals. He says we will have to forego some things entirely and postpone others for the present. But if we do wish to embark on the path to being free,
Right now, make it your habit to tell every jarring thought or impression: “You are just an appearance and in no way the real thing.” Next, examine it and test it by these rules that you have. First and foremost: does it involve the things up to us, or the things not up to us? And if it involves one of the things not up to us, have the following response to hand: “Not my business.”
What is Up to Us?
Here is where it gets complicated; once we realize this is “not my business,” we still want it to be within our control. In his short book, A Field Guide to a Happy Life, philosopher Massimo Pigliucci (a previous podcast guest) explains, “We tend to desire (and have an aversion to) the wrong things, and this is a major cause of our unhappiness.”
The opening passage of the Enchiridion puts it this way,
Some things in the world are up to us, while others are not. Up to us are our faculties of judgment, motivation, desire, and aversion—in short, everything that is our own doing. Not up to us are our body and property, our reputations, and our official positions—in short, everything that is not our own doing. Moreover, the things up to us are naturally free, unimpeded, and unconstrained, while the things not up to us are powerless, servile, impeded, and not our own.
The path to being free is one of acceptance. Learning to accept the many things that are outside of our control.
At the beginning of Discourses, Epictetus explains that the person getting an education ought to approach this process with the following aim: “How can I follow the gods in everything, how can I be content with the divine administration, and how can I become free?”
Peace, tranquility, and wisdom connect with acceptance and joy. Becoming free is the path to enjoying one’s life. Constantly wanting things to be different leads to suffering and delusion.
For Epictetus, education is learning to want all individual things to happen just as they do happen. To the question, how do they happen? Epictetus says, “In the way that the one who has arranged them has arranged. He has arranged for there to be summer and winter, plenty and dearth (scarcity), virtue and vice, and all such opposites on behalf of the harmony of the universe.”
Final Thoughts
Cultivating our character is how we educate ourselves to accept things as they happen. Acts for the common good is how we kindle the joy within us and others. “Life is short,” stressed the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (someone heavily influenced by Epictetus), “do not forget about the most important things in life: living for other people and doing good for them.”
To quote Epictetus’s Discourses a final time, Philosophy does not profess to secure for people any external possession. Otherwise, it would be undertaking something outside its proper subject matter. For as wood is the material of the carpenter, just so a person’s life is the subject matter of the art of living.
—
Thank you for reading; I hope you found something useful.
Until next time, be wise and be well,
P.S. Feel free to comment, ask questions, or make suggestions!